The invention relates to a surgical obturator for puncturing a body wall with a knife, the cutting edge of which extends outwards from a tip of the obturator in the direction of various sides and backwards in relation to the tip, and which is orientated throughout its entire length parallel to the puncturing direction so that the cutting edge points in the puncturing direction.
Obturators of this kind are used to form an opening in a body wall, through which a cannula or tube can be inserted into the interior of the body, for example, to prepare for minimally invasive surgery.
Obturators with cutting edges pointing in the puncturing direction and extending outwards and backwards from the tip are known, in which the cutting edges of the knife have a V-shape, i.e., the straight-lined cutting edges are inclined in relation to a longitudinal axis of the obturator that runs through the obturator tip. Clean cuts can be made with such obturators when the obturator is advanced through the body wall, but it is difficult to perform this puncturing operation with such a degree of sensitivity that internal organs are not inadvertently injured after the puncturing. Once the cutting operation has been initiated, it progresses with relatively little resistance, so that the surgeon is unable to precisely determine the extent to which the obturator has already penetrated the body wall.
The object of the invention is to so construct a generic surgical obturator that with it puncturing of a body wall is possible with a greater degree of sensitivity.